Charges Dropped Over Berlin Circumcision

Prosecutors in Berlin dismissed a criminal complaint lodged against a rabbi for performing circumcisions.

The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday that the complaint for “causing bodily harm” against Rabbi Yitshak Ehrenberg was dropped on August 15 as “unfounded.”

An opponent of circumcision lodged the complaint last month after Ehrenberg defended the practice on a television talk-show.

The charge lodged against Ehrenberg was the second time a rabbi in Germany was accused of the practice.

The two complaints were lodged after a Cologne court ruled in May that non-medical circumcisions on children amounted to a criminal offense. Prosecutors are still considering the first complaint, lodged against Rabbi David Goldenberg from Hof.

The city of Berlin, which also is one of 16 Federal German States, is considering not implementing the June Cologne court decision, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“Even if a non-medical circumcision were to take place it would not meet the elements of severe bodily harm,” the prosecutor’s office in Berlin wrote in a letter explaining the dismissal of the complaint, The Jerusalem Post reported.

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